Innovation Brief: Applying the Human-Centered Design Approach

Youth face many obstacles in accessing contraceptive products and services, often more than married or older individuals. These include, for example, lower access to voluntary family planning and reproductive health services, and provider bias and social norms.

Successfully breaking down these barriers requires a deep understanding of the issues that female and male youth face—and actively involving them in the solutions. Human-centered design (HCD) is one strategy for engaging youth and facilitating best practices in offering contraceptive services.

Evidence suggests that individual and community-level participation and engagement leads to more sustainable and stronger outcomes. The purpose of this brief is to describe how PHARE applied the HCD approach to address demand and access barriers to contraceptive products and services among youth in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Niger.

Source: Population Services International

Date of Publication: March 1, 2021